Peeing

What happens when I stop peeing altogether?

[Bassetmommer NKF Ambassador]

The body will fill with toxins and fluids and most often can cause a heart attack. The lungs will fill with fluid and basically the person will drown. Even with stage 5, you still urinate and people on dialysis still do too. It is just not as productive.

[Darlenia]

Hi Arlo. Generally speaking, as your kidney function decreases you will also urinate less. Dialysis eventually takes over the filtering and pee function to protect your health. Initially, most people will still able to urinate somewhat at the start of dialysis. Over time, however, many on dialysis will completely stop urinating. As all of this happens, the bladder decreases in size (some say to walnut size) and the brain/bladder signals also dissipate. When a person is transplanted, the reverse happens. The patient simple needs to give it a little time for everything to come back. For those with kidney disease, I'd like to urge people to be vigilant for urinary tract infections. I suspect those happen more easily with the changes that occur. Hope this helps.

[Hidden in reply to Darlenia]

Very helpful that answers my questions.

[Rmatthew in reply to Darlenia]

Yes this happened to me, I was on Dialysis for 12 years, transplanted last year and my bladder was so small the person doing the scan couldn’t actually see it for about 15 mins until they just found to, so I had to stay in longer post surgery for about 3 weeks

[Bond-007]

That is very interesting & anatomically makes sense. You could have symptoms of bph from an enlarged intestine.

[Irelandy]

This happened to me and my urologist put me on single use catheters to empty the bladder. I now self catheterize 4/5 a day and have done for over two years.

[KidneyCoach NKF Ambassador]

I had both kidneys removed in 2006 and thus no organs to produce urine and have not peed since. At stage 5 dialysis takes over that function by removing extra fluid (and toxins) from the body. I still have doctors and nurses who don't understand the concept. The bladder can shrink due to lack of use. Fluid restritoctions are often put in place to control/avoid fluid overload.Questions?

[Darlenia in reply to KidneyCoach]

So true. We were dumbfounded by the considerable number of doctors and nurses requesting urine samples from my hubby! It's like...what? Haven't you been told? Don't you read? Don't you know? Smh.

[Bond-007]

Sad that some Drs & nurses do not know about this basic physiology.